In which a kid slides directly into his dad’s DMs and then catches the consumption.

It’s part two of our spectacular Companions Season finalé, in which we continue to talk about The Curse of the Black Spot with Doctor Who podcast luminaries Erika Ensign and Steven Schapansky!

In this episode, a Steven Moffat conspiracy theory is hatched, and we discuss how Doctor Who fans aren’t detail oriented at all, and how crowns are pretty dope. Plus: drunk Chris Chibnall talk! Also, the appearance of some pod cats! No, we don’t really edit, why do you ask?

This week, I sat down with Danica LeBlanc, co-owner of Variant Edition Comics and Culture, to talk about what it’s like to be a woman in the comic world, what it’s like to run a business with your partner, and more.

A little while back, Brandon was invited onto Drink This Podcast to talk about story. For regular listeners of Doctor Whooch, you’ll know it goes… as well as can be expected, as Brandon gets more and more incoherent over the course of two episodes.

Episode 74: HOW DO WE GET THERE? WE KILL THE WIFE? GREAT IDEA! (Listen here)

Today we are joined by new friend of the show Brandon Schatz, owner proprietor of Variant Edition Comics for our first Paul written docket, and another in our ongoing series about story telling and pop-culture narratives. We dive into our favourite shows, what kind of story telling we want to see, and how different mediums play off each and influence each other.

Today we are joined again by our new old friend Brandon Schatz for part 2 of our conversation around narrative story telling. we attempt to abandon our TV conversation and move in to other forms of narrative, get drawn back into the same old podcast conversation, and then back to television, before settling on video games, and then it all falls apart, in the best possible way.

Hey there folks! We have some exciting news! A little while back, Danica was invited to take part in an episode of Radio Free Skaro, and this week, the audio is out there in the cloud, ready for your ears.

Sad news to impart this week, with the death of Doctor Who director and television pioneer Paddy Russell, who directed “The Massacre”, “Invasion of the Dinosaurs”, “Pyramids of Mars”, and “Horror of Fang Rock”, along with many other non-Who programmes on UK television. We also have news of Shada on DVD in North America, the continued audio adventures of River Song, doings transpiring at Titan Comics regarding the Doctor Who comics line, and in Second Chances we look at “The Eaters of Light” with Doctor Whooch host and Edmonton comic shop owner Danica LeBlanc!

Speaking as the “Brandon” half of Submet Industries, I can wholeheartedly say this is worth a listen – especially if you want to hear Danica talk about her (and our) Moffat opinions with some folks who don’t hate the man.

In which we offend the southern states and maybe also most of the British.

It’s part one of our HUGE finalé to our companion of Doctor Whooch – featuring Doctor Who podcast luminaries Erika Ensign and Steven Schapansky! This one has it all. Or it would if we hadn’t split it in two. So I guess this one has roughly half. BUT WHAT A HALF IT IS. We blame Saskatchewan for things, discover Steven’s superpower, decide that Arthur Darvill is British AF and toss out spoilers for Earthshock. So if you’re listening to this in 1982, uh… whoops.

In which we come into watching “Blink” with good intentions, and leave it lying in a ditch somehow.

Our Companions Season of the show continues with special guests Amber Chipman and Laury Plant, and we proceed to pull strings while we watch a modern classic. Marvel as Brandon can’t remember any names. Again. Be totally surprised when Moffat keeps a woman sad and waiting. There’s angels. There is dick pics, kinda. There are white girls named Sally. There’s… a lot. Get ready to hate us real bad, but please, remember that we love you.

“What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.”

-T.S. Elliot

We meet Brás de Oliva Domingos on his birthday. He’s sitting at a bar, wearing a tuxedo, on his way to celebrate the life of his father, who has recently passed away. There is blood on his tuxedo. He is 32.

Death looms large in the life of Brás – a fact we are made privy to very early in the time we spend with him. He writes obituaries for a newspaper, describing lives through fondly sculpted memories. His work, though prolific in its own small way, is brimming with character. He describes the life of a famous painter, who had been in love with 274 different women in his life, proof of this being found in the portraits he would make of each lover, every painting carrying the name “Lola”. You know this painter for a fleeting moment, and yet a life has been spread before you, rife with nuance.

He is a master of words – a talent handed down to him from his father – though neither would openly admit this. Brás’ father was a famous writer and in his death, he was to be celebrated – though as cruel fate would have it, this celebration would occur on Brás’ own birthday. As he reads the paper detailing the soiree, he attempts to believe that his father would’ve balked at the suggestion of having the event occur as his son would begin another year of life. Reality says otherwise, however, and Brás is given a rough start to his 32nd birthday.

In short order, we see our hero struggling to stay above water, awash in a sea of memory. His typewriter was a gift from his father. A bad habit picked up from his mother bares his father’s fingerprints, the smoke coming from his favourite brand of cigarette. Throughout our inaugural trip with Brás, these themes of death, family and the attempt to live with and without both swirl until an ending. There is blood on his tuxedo. There is a gun in his face.

Brás dies on the date of his birth – and his story begins.

WHAT ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT DAYS OF YOUR LIFE?

Do you remember your first kiss? Your first love? Your one and only love? How about first loss? Your first personal failure? Your first death? In Daytripper, recounted in stunning clarity, we see the most important days of a man’s life. We see the lessons he learns from these moments, and the way his old life dies – only to be reborn anew inside of a new phase – an ending making way for a new beginning.

Each chapter is told without an effort made towards linear chronology – in its stead, events enfold in such a way that themes bleed from one story to the next – love, leading to loss, leading to love, leading to life, and over and over and over. Viewing a life in such a way is far and away out of the ordinary, but much more fulfilling and hearty. Each note hits at just the right frequency, resonating in your bones before ebbing and transforming into a fresh one, lyrics dancing beautifully atop the music you don’t so much as hear, but feel. The tune is familiar, but surprising in parts. You live alongside Brás. You die with him over and over and over. You heart aches and your heart breaks. You are haunted.

STORYTELLING

“I guess everyone that likes comics and likes to draw has this kind of notion that the drawings are the most important thing. And we were like that in the beginning. Now we care much more about the overall story. We don’t make too much effort to determine who is doing what, because in the end all that matter is the whole thing, the story we create and put out so people can read it. We don’t care who’s drawing. The artist doesn’t matter; the story is what matters.”

-Fábio Moon from The Comics Journal No. 298, May 2009

The twins Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá are phenomenal storytellers – though most people only know them from working with writers such as Matt Fraction on Casanova and Gerard Way on The Umbrella Academy. And while their art styles are certainly very accomplished and evocative, their greatest strength lies in the way they tell a story. In their projects with other writers, this storytelling aspect is limited, in a sense, to what they can convey using other people’s words. In such cases, their art works as a bit of a mixtape, using the poetry of others and infusing it with your own deliberate choices, in order to make something different than what would’ve been through one voice alone. Inside the pages of Daytripper – as well as other works where they act both as writers and artists, the twins are left to tell stories with their own words.

In describing what they attempted to accomplish with this story in the back of its collected volume, Fábio Moon stated, “We wanted that feeling that life was happening right there, in front of every one of us, and we were living it. And we did. And sometimes, we die to prove that we lived.”

The words sum up the work as a whole more beautifully than I could ever hope to capture it – present in every page is a life well lived – one perfectly realized and captured using the drapes of small moments, dressing the bones of large, personal events. While adding their own measure of the fantastic to the regular events in a life, the twins manage to allow this story to become larger in the readers minds. Really, the story of Brás is no different than the story of mine or yours – but by adding the aspect of death, these everyday occurrences gain meaning. As Moon said, “We die to prove that we lived.” Death gives all moments meaning.

Without thinking about the story first, and letting the art really become a part of that, to be in service of that, rather than the driving force, this point is made with a subtle touch, staying at the fringes of your mind as you continue through one man’s life. And then, of course, there’s an ending – just as there must be with everything.

BEGINNING

There’s a magic present inside Daytripper that I can’t even hope to capture. I could go on for hours, for days attempting to parse every nuance, but the would be an exercise in fruitlessness. The book is much better experienced as it was always intended – through the medium of comics, wherein words can inform pictures, and pictures can carry words. It would do your heart good to go out and experience this book. Do it soon – because before long, something new will have to begin.